Hero's Story
by hope.rose.dawnstar
Summary: I want to understand you, because years ago you marked me. And the name you gave remains.
1. I want to understand you

**Chapter 1: I want to understand you, and I fear I never will.**

 _ **So, hello, readers. This is something that I am writing in an effort to bring back my inspiration for my other stories, here and on Wattpad. It's kinda a double fanfic, or even a triple: it's based on a Minecraft legend, but is also heavily centered around a song ( Mark's Song) by a group called Echo's Children, a song which is inspired by a couple of books by Lois McMaster Bujold (I have read neither of the two books). **__**I would like to ask that you DON'T go look it up YET, if you by some miracle already know it, that's fine, but you don't wan't to spoil anything before it is written, right?**_

 _ **I may write most of this story all at once, or I may write it a chapter at a time. We'll have to see. But hopefully by the time I'm done I'll be ready to work on The Theory of Alternate Universes and my Wattpad stories again. I do think the chapters will be quite short, but I don't know yet.**_

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As I walk along the top of the narrow, intricately built cobblestone wall that surrounds the castle, I think back to the time I spent following behind you. Well, it never really was me following you, just me observing you from afar, taking measure of your strengths and weaknesses. Later on, I did come closer, and I'm still not sure why.

I have never been able to understand how you were so successful with so many weak spots. One minute you'd be hiding away from a single zombie, and the next you'd hear somebody scream, and run out into a horde of hundreds. Why in the Overworld would you do that? Why in the Nether or the End? The people could fend for themselves, but you surely couldn't armorless and weaponless. You nearly died that way, at least thirty times.

I don't know why I didn't dismiss you from my mind after the second time that happened. Anybody that stupid and reckless is not worthy of my time.

But you slowly improved, though not to a level I would ever consider truly worthy of my attention. And somehow, I stayed.

Still, that was not your only flaw, in my mind. You would give all your best resources away- diamonds, emeralds, saddles, horse armor, things that were not easily attained. When I asked, you would call it "being nice." Yeah, right. Being nice is giving somebody your spare gear when they have only boots left, or sparing an enemy in a fight. Giving everything of value to those who already have more than you is just crippling yourself. Yet you refused to see it that way.

No mater how much I wish to understand you, I doubt I ever will.

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 _ **Well, this first chapter is certainly VERY short. Shorter even than I expect. I guess this means more very soon, then. Possibly even within the next hour.**_


	2. you saw me learn to kill

**Chapter 2: You stymied every plan I had; you saw me learn to kill. (part 1)**

 _ **To the guest reviewer: I said maybe within the next hour, not definitely. It turned out to not be within the day at all. Sorry. And as I'm writing this right now, there isn't any wifi I can use, so even if I finish the chapter, who knows when I'll be able to post it.**_

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Eventually, you took as much interest in me as I had in you. Sometimes, I would observe you, other times, you would observe me.

On one occasion, you watched as I made a deal in an alleyway, bargaining for a weapon with a man who had brown eyes, black hair, and a beard. As I turned to leave with my new sword, he pulled out his own and made a slice across the back of my ankle. I fell, but made sure to fall so I was facing him and in a stable position. Unsheathing my new weapon, I blocked the rest of his blows, until he knocked my sword from my hand. I dove to the side of his next strike, and then he was tackled from the side.

That was when I realized that you had been watching, and that you had rushed in, armorless and weaponless as always, to try and save me. Sometimes, I do feel like you were trying to get yourself killed whenever you did that sort of thing. Surely you couldn't have been that stupid. If you nearly died doing something once, you shouldn't have done it again and again. You wouldn't get lucky every time.

I withdrew my dagger from my pocket. The man pushed you off him, and adjusted his grip on his sword. He aimed it towards you, looking away from me. Then, I carefully rose to my feet, suppressing the gasp of pain that wanted to escape when I moved my left foot, and I moved in front of you. With only a moment of hesitation, I plunged my dagger into his chest. When he collapsed, in pain and in shock (the fact that he wasn't expecting to get beaten by a teenage boy, or even a pair of them, probably didn't help him), I pulled the dagger out, leaving him to bleed to death.

You were horrified. But he was going to kill us, so after spending a while calming yourself down, you pulled me off to the town hall to explain what had happened, before somebody got accused of flat-out murder of the man.

The guard who we told our story to said she understood, and we would be fine. But I could tell that the guards would be keeping a closer eye on me from then on.

Later that day, I wondered why I had blocked the man from attacking you, why I had let you drag me to the town hall with you. If you had been hurt, it would have been your own fault, for going into a fight unprepared. And it was already a shady deal, even before he attacked me, so I shouldn't have let you take me to the authorities, even if the only way they should have been able to know was if one of us told them. I thought, and realized that I had grown fond of having you around. I had made my first friend since I'd had to move here six years before.

But I didn't really want friends, especially not friends like you. I was going to live a life of crime, and you would only get in my way.

And I was doubtful that you would even want to be my friend, especially after seeing me kill a man with such ease.

After that, though, you didn't tell me to go away on days when I was observing you, and you still often followed me around on days when I wasn't. You would still talk to me, even when I tried to ignore you for the next couple of days after the incident. In fact, as I stopped responding, you grew increasngly distressed. "Did I do something wrong?" you asked more than once. It seemed that you did want us to be friends.

I guess if you were running around trying to save people from mobs of monsters when you had nothing to defend yourself with, I shouldn't have expected you to abandon me because I killed a man who tried to kill me. But I never have fully understood why you did anything, and I didn't really understand you at all back then.

Eventually, I gave in, and allowed myself to be friends with you.

* * *

 ** _I'm not entirely sure how to transition within the chapter between here and what would be the next part of this chapter, so I'm splitting this into two. This chapter is already longer that the first, if I'm remembering correctly. I would check that, but still no wifi, so..._**


	3. You stymied every plan I had

**Chapter 3: You stymied every plan I had; you saw me learn to kill (part 2)**

 _ **It has been way too long since I have written any of my stories. I just completed a chapter for one over on Wattpad, and now I'm going to see what I can do about something for you readers here, who have been proven to actually exist, unlike the ones I like to imagine are there on Wattpad.**_

 _ **Also, I have now read at least one of the books from which the song is derived, and it seems my intended plotline is not as similar to the original as I'd worried it might be, so I am indeed writing fanfiction and not just plugging different characters into a copy of the original. Yay!**_

* * *

After the incident where I found we were friends, for quite a while you didn't let me out of your sight if you could help it. Every time I tried to continue with my life of crime, you would peek very obtrusively around a corner and make the person I was bargaining with decide they didn't need to have anything to do with a kid like me; or come up behind me, loudly ask "What are we doing?" and foil my intended burglary; something. It was very annoying, and I was never sure if you were doing it on purpose.

But what I was sure of was that it _had. to. STOP!_

You were my friend, and I found that it created an emotional bond that refused to break. No matter how hard I tried to ignore you, I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried to keep you away, the next day you were there again, trailing behind me. I had never asked for this silly, unneeded, hampering attachment, and yet there seemed no way to get rid of it. I would have to, though, for a fool such as you surely would be a weak point, somebody people could threaten to get at me. In my intended line of work, that would be a huge burden, a massive liability that I could not afford. Not to mention that the strange fondness part of me had for you insisted I should not drag you into that situation, not only for my own sake but for yours.

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 _ **Another short one... oh, well. The next one should be VERY good, with what I have in mind.**_


End file.
